Speaker
Description
In this talk, I will describe how trapped-ion crystals can be used as platforms for the quantum simulation of gauge fields. Focusing on the crystal vibrations, I will show how Floquet engineering can be used to control an effective Peierls’ phase, and discuss a recent experiment demonstrating where this phase leas to Aharonov-Bohm interference of phonons. I will then discuss how to promote the Peierl’s phase to a dynamical gauge field by exploiting also the trapped-ion qubits, which leads naturally to a Z2 gauge theory with bosonic matter particles. I will discuss recent trapped-ion experiments of this scheme, where one can observe how the effective dynamical charges can only move by stretching and compressing the Z2 electric field. Inspired by these quantum simulation toolbox, I will briefly discuss lattice models where Aharonov-Bohm interference can lead to deconfined phases even in the absence of plaquette interactions, a current bottleneck of analog quantum simulators.
